


Chocobo Noir

by spacehopper



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Noir Pastiche, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 02:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13137306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehopper/pseuds/spacehopper
Summary: There's a missing chocobo chick, and Prompto's just the man for the job. Will his handsome partner Ignis Scientia help him crack the case? Or will Prompto's attraction prove a deadly distraction?Or, Prompto watched far too many noir films, and Ignis is along for the ride.





	Chocobo Noir

He was a tall guy, slender, strict but in a way I knew had to mean there was something wild underneath. The city lights glinted off his glasses as he leaned forward, hands on my desk. I could tell he was sweating, a faint sheen on his chest where his shirt gapped slightly, unbuttoned. Unusual. As was the tiny feather caught in his hair. I knew then that I’d take the case, and damn the consequences. They say people in this city never sleep, and it looked like tonight, I was going to be one of them. 

“Prompto, why are you sitting behind my desk?” 

He was called Ignis Scientia, or Iggy to his friends. I still wasn’t sure if I could consider myself one of them, but damn if I didn’t want that, and maybe a bit more.

“I’ll do it,” I said, pulling my hat lower over my eyes. I couldn’t let him know how he’d affected me. Business, strictly business. That was all this was. I stood, grabbed my coat, and headed for the door, only stopping once to glance back at him and see his slim figure framed perfectly in the window. 

“Some things, you just can’t have,” I said to myself.

“I knew that movie marathon was a bad idea. Is this about the chocobo chick?” he said, following me.

“We’re gonna bring that bird home.” I nodded at the door, holding it open, and he proceeded through, elegant as always.

It was hard sometimes, keeping it professional. But the case was what’s important. The innocents of the city relied on me, and it was a trust I’d never break. No matter how gorgeous the man.

*

I eventually tracked our culprits to the Temple of Bahamut, with a little help from my handsome gentleman friend. Despite living in the city my whole life, I’d never seen the inside before. They don’t let plebes like me in here. 

“Damn,” I said, whistling, “it’s impressive.”

“Indeed,” Iggy said, favoring me with a look I couldn’t quite read, face guarded from a lifetime of cutthroat court politics. “It was built during the reign of Queen Sibylla.”

“Woman had style,” I said. “And the acoustics aren’t bad either.” I could hear singing, like something sent down by the Astrals themselves, coming from the center of the temple. But I knew that under all that light, there was darkness at the heart. We just had to root it out.

“You know where to go?” I said, nudging Iggy with my shoulder, before pulling quickly away. I had to concentrate on the case, not the dapper gent. 

“Indeed,” he said, verdant eyes hard, and headed deeper into the temple.

I’d trust him for now. I had to. He knew the place, I didn’t. Maybe it was a weakness, and it’d probably get me killed someday, but if there was one thing I’d learned in my months on the beat, it was that you gotta rely on your partner. Gotta trust them. Even if it hurts when they just follow the sounds of the singing, and don’t notice a damn thing about you or your pathetic attempts to flirt. 

Noct’d said Iggy was smart, but that he sometimes missed things, especially this kind of thing. And subtlety had never been my forte anyway. 

Maybe I should try the ass slapping.

“Are you coming, Prompto?” Iggy called from down the corridor.

I ran after him. That’d be for another day. Right now, there was a chick to save. 

*

A bullet whizzed past my ear, a shot in the dark but still too close for comfort. We had the chick, but the whole case have proved more complicated that I’d thought. Just a simple search and rescue, but things were never simple when you’re in the Crownsguard. 

“This is really looking like more than just one kidnapped chocobo,” I said to my partner as he threw a dagger at one of what was apparently an entire ring of exotic animal smugglers. You see our chick was special, one of a kind, a black chocobo with a white crest. People’d pay real money for that. People you didn’t want to mess with. 

The dagger landed in the thug’s throat, and I winced. Good thing Iggy was on my side. For now, at least. You never knew when the tides would turn.

“I told you so,” Iggy said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “The report indicated this was an extensive, organized criminal operation.”

Ah, the report. I hadn’t read that. Noct said you didn’t need to, and if you can’t trust the prince, who can you trust?

Apparently no one. Because with the look Iggy was giving me now, not reading it had been a mistake. But I’d never been one to live in the past. And sometimes, you had to make mistakes, or you’d never make a damn thing.

I fired a shot and hit another thug in the shoulder before retreating behind cover. Our charge cheeped, huddled between us, as innocent as the day we might never see.

“We should retreat,” Iggy said. 

Some had called me reckless, and damned if that some hadn’t included Iggy. But it was what’d gotten me where I was today. 

I slapped him on the ass, and gave him a sly grin while he stood their, stunned.

“Let’s get moving.”

*

I thought my heart had hardened long ago, but even stone can crack. 

We’d taken refuge in an old supply closet, the chick tucked away at the back. I was the fastest draw this side of Lucis, and Iggy’s cut men faster than he cut vegetables, but it was still just the two of us against a couple dozen guys. We needed a plan. And plans? They were kind of Iggy’s thing. 

I scanned the corridors, eyes sharp for any mobsters lurking in the shadows, but the only peeps I heard came from the chick. I shut the door with a click, and turned back to my partner, who was gently stroking the chick’s head. Iggy’s a hard guy, hard to read, hard to really get. But this chick? It broke that facade, digging into his gooey insides. 

And seeing Iggy with it, well. A man had needs, had feelings he just couldn’t fight. Fragile points. Only so much you could take. And seeing Ignis Scientia with that chick, all tender and loving like I’d never seen him before? That was mine. 

I knew I might get my heart broken. Dames and gents had broken it before. But damn if I wasn’t about to give it to Iggy on a platter. And when he met my eyes, I think he knew it. 

*

I stood over the traitor with death in my eyes and a gun in my hands. I didn’t have time for scum like this on my best days, and today? It wasn’t my best.

“It’s the 147th Annual Chocobo Festival, declared by King Festus to honor the brave chocobo who saved his life.” I spat on the man in disgust. “And you just had to get smear your filth on this holy day, of all days, taking this baby from its mother.” 

“What the hell, dude, it’s just a bird.” The traitor had his hands up, backing away slowly. Good. I had him running, just where I wanted him. “You can’t kill me over that.”

“Scum like you give the Crownsguard a bad name,” I said, advancing on him and taking the safety off my gun, letting a cold smile tug at my lips. Sometimes you had to scare them to get them just where you wanted. 

“I think you’ll find it’s rather more than a bird,” Iggy said, stepping out the shadows and placing his dagger against the traitor’s throat. “It’s a chick, an innocent creature you stole away with only a thought for your own profit.”

“What the hell is wrong with you guys,” he said, struggling a little, and getting a nick to the throat for his efforts. 

“Please remain silent,” Iggy said. He let the dagger vanish, and twisted the traitor’s hand behind his back, harder than strictly necessary. “We’ll take you into custody now.”

One thing I’d learned long ago that this creep was about to find out the hard way was that you never, ever messed with Iggy. 

*

A smile tugged at my lips, pulling my face out of its perpetual scowl. Seeing that chick reunited with her mama, now that was a true holiday miracle. Maybe there weren’t many honest Crownsguard, but as long as there were men like Ignis Scientia, I think the city might be just a little brighter. 

“You did well today,” Iggy said, coming up alongside me and resting his hand on my elbow. “Despite the slightly unorthodox narration.”

The chick chirped and burrowed under its mother’s wing, while she cooed in response. Warmed my heart to see it, and it seemed like that wasn’t the only thing warming today. Insomnia’s a dangerous place, and happy endings are never guaranteed. You gotta seize what you can, when you can take it, and damn the consequences. 

“I hope you don’t kill me for this,” I said to Iggy, then dragged his head down and locked lips, giving him a good, hard kiss. You can only resist this kind of guy for so long. And I was all out of resources. 

A sly smile tugged at this lips. 

“I won’t kill you,” he said, taking my cheeks between his hands. “At least not yet.”

He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, the tease, and put my hand on his waist. And a man just had to take an invitation like that. I kissed him again, and that? That was case closed. 

At least for now. 

*

_Sometime later:_

“Prompto, what are you wearing?”

“Sometimes, you gotta go undercover to solve the case,” I said, reclining on the desk in an alluring pose.

“Is that—” He shook his head, like he couldn’t quite believe it. Like there was still something new in this whole damn city. “Is that a sexy chocobo outfit?”

“Do you want it to be?” Maybe I’d done it on purpose. Maybe I still had room in my heart, to take a chance on love. 

“I’m not sure if this is better or worse than the trench coat.” He walked over to the desk, put a hand on the bare skin the outfit exposed at my waist. 

“You ready to take another case, partner?” When he didn’t respond immediately, I gave him my best sexy pout. Just like I thought, he was powerless against my wiles. He kissed me hard, sending a thrill through my bones. Dangerous men were always so exciting. 

And then Iggy laughed.

“With you? Always.”


End file.
